


Barefoot to Palestine

by orphan_account



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Domestic Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pillow Talk, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), i wrote this listening to the normal people soundtrack if you want an idea of the vibe, pre-s1 flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24269161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: All he wanted to do was take Jon’s head in his hands, blinker him from whatever horrors were bleeding into the corners of his eyes, and wait for however long it was for him to return. A couple of times he acted on that want, and it had worked; but some ugly thought in the back of his mind reminded him that one day he simply wouldn’t be enough.Martin and Jon try to keep themselves from getting lost in the big empty house.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	Barefoot to Palestine

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Othello ( _"I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip"_ ).
> 
> Small CW for very implied childhood abuse/neglect. And gratuitous breaking of the "don't overuse pop culture references" literary rule.

* * *

Martin did not miss London. He did not miss the twist in his chest when he thought he’d lost his Oyster card at the turnstiles, he did not miss the unyielding headaches the polluted air gave his forever-unadjusted northern condition, and he certainly did not miss his freezing Hackney bedsit. He didn’t miss work (not as much as he thought he would), he didn’t miss polite drinks at the pub down the road or paying seven pounds for a pint or pretending to know the difference between stout and IPA. Martin didn’t miss London, but he did miss some things.

“I wish the village had a Greggs,” he said, over some rubbery tuna pasta bake Jon had put together at the dinner table one evening. They sat, as they always did, at opposite ends of the long wooden bench, and in a depressing sort of way Martin liked the cold domesticity of it.

Jon just looked at him, taking a mouthful of pasta off his fork.

“They have fifty Greggs in Glasgow,” Martin continued, “can't be that far to drive.”

The tuna and pasta and tin of chopped tomatoes had been sitting in Daisy’s pantry for god knows how long, though they were still in date (just), and awareness of that fact remained somewhere in the background of Jon’s expression.

“Only about five hours,” he said.

Martin had offered to go down to the shop but Jon had insisted they could make do because he didn’t want him to feel obliged to go out in the rain. It comes with the territory, Martin had retorted, literally – but for all his effort he might as well have been arguing with a brick wall.

As it turned out, he thought the meal was actually quite nice.

“That’s not that long.” Martin didn’t think twice about the dismissiveness of what he was saying until a grin crept across Jon’s face, trying to stifle a laugh. “What?”

Jon managed to control his laughter, but the smile remained on his lips and in his voice. “Five hours.”

“What?”

“For a steak bake?”

Martin put his fork down on the empty plate before him, the clang of metal loud in the hollow air of the kitchen. “What would _you_ drive five hours for?”

For a while Jon only stared at him in silence, though where before had been incredulousness now crept a sickly sincerity – something in the way his expression softened and the smile didn’t budge.

It was one Martin couldn’t help but mirror, the buzzing in his chest suddenly frenzied with a nervous giddiness he could never shake no matter how used he got to being looked at like that. The same buzzing pitched his voice higher as he feigned disbelief, shaking his head. “You soft bastard.”

Jon held his hands up to his sides. “I didn’t say anything.”

“But that’s what you were thinking, wasn’t it?” He followed Jon with his eyes around the table when he stood to collect the plates, dipping his head to spear Jon’s gaze – that had now fallen shy – again. “You were gonna say it,” he said, increasing his provocation as Jon lifted the plate from in front of him, touching his waist with one hand as he tried to pass, closer than was necessary, to get to the sink. With that connection, Jon conceded and stopped, looking down at Martin who met him with excitement in his eyes. “Go on, I wanna hear you say it.”

Jon sighed. “Martin, I would drive five hours for you.” He stepped forward so that he was standing between Martin’s thighs. “I’d drive fifty hours for you.” He leaned in so that their faces were close, close enough that Martin could feel the light warm breath against his own lips when he spoke. “I’d drive all the way to Kiev-"

“Kiev?”

“-for you. I'd drive to Samarkand.”

“Where’s that?”

“Uzbekistan.”

There was no conceivable way in which someone could manage to say ‘Uzbekistan’ in a seductive manner; but somehow, as he continued to transcend all known laws of human nature, Jon managed it.

Martin cupped his hands around Jon’s face above him, fingers sliding through the hair behind his ears. It was getting long now, long enough that he could probably just about tie it back if he ever felt inclined. Earlier that afternoon he’d ask Martin if he’d cut it for him, because Martin had mentioned in passing that one of his old flatmates in Hackney had been a barber and taught him the basics a couple of years ago. His cheeks felt hot, but Martin presumed that was just as much his hands being cold – an almost permanent state of being in this house. “I'd walk to Samarkand, Uzbekistan for you,” he said, just above a whisper, and bringing their faces closer still so that their lips were barely millimetres from touching. “But I don’t need to, because you’re right here.”

He leaned back ever so slightly and held Jon’s gaze, close, trying to let himself give into the pull and fall into the depth but his own words buoying him with a quiet and frantic doubt. It was only a fleeting check – assurance for his own paranoia, something that would make him feel selfish if he thought about it too much: that for a flicker in Jon’s tired eyes which said he was not elsewhere, at least for now, and therefore that Martin was enough, at least for now, to keep him here. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, not by a long shot. In fact he did it so often he had to make a conscious effort not to do it, particularly in certain situations.

On occasion Jon would catch him searching, tilt his head or kiss him chastely, and say _I’m here, I’m not going anywhere_. Other times (like the first couple of times they’d had sex, but since then Martin had realised that that was when Jon was most _here_ ) he would return the concern, or otherwise rebut the interrogation with an irritated _what?_ But Martin would always check. You’re always somewhere until you leave; and you can leave at any time.

For now, Jon’s expression was unwavering. Contending. He tilted his head slightly as if considering moving forward again. “They don't have Greggs in Uzbekistan.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t have Greggs in fucking Kinbrace either, so I’m sure I’d survive.”

At that, Jon huffed a laugh. That look again, the one Martin was still learning to feel like he deserved, then stepped away and back on course to the sink.

The village wasn’t all that bad, in fact in a certain light it could even be regarded as picturesque. That sturdy reassurance of somewhere that had barely changed the paint on the walls in forty years. He didn’t know why, but when he had first offered himself up for a supply run on the second or third day they’d arrived, Martin had been so nervous to step foot in the little newsagent that he dug his fingernails into his palms the whole walk down the hill. Guilt, perhaps, unfounded upon the idea that he was the first outsider to ever set foot in the place, that the man behind the counter would regard him with cold suspicious eyes and run him out of the shop and tell him to never dare coming back. All paranoia, of course, as much as Martin had come to expect of himself; the man behind the counter was very nice and welcomed him to their little corner of the Highlands, even recommending a gentle walk along the river for himself and his friend (he’d seen them pull up, nothing goes amiss in this place) that wasn’t too strenuous and perfect for urban types like themselves.

 _Urban._ Martin had stopped once he was outside and looked down at his clothes. He thought he’d done an all right job at being inconspicuous – did people in the country not wear joggers?

Neither did he, usually. They were Jon’s.

They ended up walking the riverside route the next morning, and just like all they were surrounded with it had been beautiful. Up until then Jon had seemed to be coming round to forgetting, allowing himself to be distracted from anything else that was, when they were nestled into a corner of the sofa and all there was to hear was a steady heartbeat under the warm fabric of Martin’s shirt, less than unimportant. Then that morning they reached a point where the river dived underground, and after a month without rain the abandoned exposed rock above had become dry and bleached by the sun. In amongst them were stagnant pools of stranded water, now brown and topped with a thin film of decay, scatterings of flies dead and dying flailing on their backs to free their useless wings from the surface tension. They hadn’t hung around for long, and after about half a mile the river re-emerged, white water spilling over miniature waterfalls and into the clear. Jon was walking ahead, so Martin saw when he stopped all of a sudden, head turned to the other side of the river towards the thick lining of trees that populated the bank and stretched all the way up the base of the hill. In amongst the array of dense green and brown was a patch of trees that were bone-grey, naked limbs curling out in all directions to nothing. About half a dozen of them were collected together in a colourless huddle, with one or two scattered amongst the living shrubbery nearby. Jon had watched them with something like defeat, and another something like humiliation. Like he was foolish for thinking he could ever be given an escape.

When Martin caught up with him, Jon explained in depth the devastating effects of ash dieback.

His scientific knowledge just about made up for all that he lacked in pop culture. Martin recalled a time not long after he'd been promoted to head archivist when Jon had said or done something Martin couldn’t remember now and probably was making a conceited effort not to pay attention to at the time, and Tim had called him _the Magnus Institute’s very own Alan Partridge_ which, in whatever context it was, had been funny enough to make everyone laugh. Everyone but Jon, who instead furrowed his brow and uttered the immortal words: _who’s Alan Partridge?_

From then on Tim appeared to be making an effort to weave some quote or reference into every conversation he and Jon shared. Martin thought it cruel; he’d catch the odd end of their interactions and hear the defensive fluster in Jon's voice, trying to dig himself out of a hole and preserve the dignity of his cultured facade. All Martin could do was stand by and listen, pleading silently _stop digging, Jon. Stop digging,_ and longing for the day he could lay out a crash course of every soap opera and Premier League derby to pull him gently into the 21st Century. Tim didn’t do it out of maliciousness, of course – at least not at first, though after the Prentiss incident Martin supposed he was scrambling any ammunition he had left. And though it pained him to see Jon ruffled in humiliation over something so trivial, he didn’t think something that barely constituted workplace bullying held up to loitering outside someone’s house to take photos of them and accusing them of murder.

He wondered if Jon remembered it. Or if the institute was a blind spot for his Beholding – like how the eye cannot see where the optic nerve connects it to the brain. They never spoke about the old days, never reminisced funny stories of work karaoke nights or particularly imaginative office gossip. In all fairness Jon had never joined in with either, so perhaps there was nothing for him to reminisce in the first place, and it wasn’t like Martin ever pressed it. Sometimes, however, he would overhear Jon listening back to the tapes – when he left the door to their bedroom ajar, hunched over the desk with his head in his hands – and Tim and Sasha’s voices echoed down the landing as Martin approached.

He missed the karaoke nights. He and Tim would always do S Club 7.

The light in the hallway had blown – or perhaps it had never worked, Martin couldn’t quite remember – and Jon was quiet in his manoeuvring about the house at the best of times so Martin nearly didn’t notice him hidden in the shadows, sat on the bottom step of the staircase putting his shoes on. It was dark by now, nearing ten o’clock and the pattering of rain on every one of the dozens of windows throughout the building mustered such an echo it made the drizzle sound apocalyptic.

Martin leaned against the doorway, arms folded. “Where you going?”

The rain sounded as though it was getting heavier. Jon pulled his coat from the bannister, pulling the hood over his head. “Just out for a fag.” He wrapped the parka around him instead of zipping it up, then looked up in the direction of his feeling of being watched. “What?”

“Are you alright?”

It was apparent immediately that one wasn’t going to work as Jon flashed him an oblivious smile, standing to his feet. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said quietly, but with confidence, floorboards creaking underfoot as he emerged from the darkness to join Martin on the kitchen threshold, tracing his hands around Martin’s belt to rest on his waist. “Are _you_ alright?”

“Yeah.” Martin ran his thumbs over Jon’s elbows, leaning in so that their noses were brushing. “I’m gonna kiss you now because when you come back you’ll taste of smoke.”

“Do you not like it?”

“I like you enough not to care.”

He pressed his lips against Jon’s grinning own, chaste to begin with – even with something he could call hesitation, hung heavy in the atomic space left between them, thoughts threatening to overpower feeling – but then even the strongest fundamental forces are reversed when they’re brought close enough together. Jon brought his hand up around Martin’s jaw, hands warm and tingling the skin of his cheek as he brushed his thumb over it, deepening the kiss as he did so. It was slow, and Jon’s nicotine addiction was assurance that it wasn’t going anywhere, so Martin took it for all he could get. He pulled Jon in by his waist so that their bodies were pressed together all the way up to their chests.

Eventually Jon pulled away, just far enough to look at Martin properly. “Ever the romantic.”

He paused a moment longer, Martin’s hands still firmly around his waist and their hips pressed together. Martin revelled in it; there were fewer times where he thought Jon more breath-taking that when he was a little undone, his cheeks flushed despite the house’s unshakeable cold.

Then the moment dissipated; Jon untangled himself from the embrace and fumbled around in his pocket for the box of straights, placing one between his lips and departing with one final, satisfied smile.

Sometimes Martin thought, if ever someone were to ask him to summarise his reason (if he needed a reason) to be in love with Jon, he’d say it was because he went all the way out to the end of the driveway to smoke instead of staying on the porch, even when it was pouring with rain, because there were bats nesting under the gutters and he’d read somewhere that cigarette smoke can deter them.

The lamp on the bedside table was small and dim but enough to cast the whole room in its antique yellow glow. Martin was grateful for it; the ceiling light was harsh and clinical, especially during the night, but he liked to be able to see Jon like this. To see the gold over brown skin, over his chest, his arm muscles, slicked with sweat and spent on his back against the crumpled bedsheets that he slowly began to release from his grasp. Seeing was half of the experience – though, obviously, it was nearly all feeling – it wasn’t entirely complete otherwise.

A serious improvement on his ex-boyfriend, who would insist on only ever having sex in complete darkness, to the point that Martin had injured himself on more than one occasion for not being able to see where he was putting his feet. They’d never talked about it – he had assumed it was a self-esteem thing and didn’t want to make an issue out of it. Now, however, or at least by the time he’d (very) drunkenly confided in Sasha about it while waiting for the night bus, he concluded that said ex was just very, very boring.

_“That’s what you get for shagging-”_

_“Shagging someone who works for the DWP, I know, you’ve said. Cheers.”_

_“That being said, what are we but paranormal civil servants?”_

He tried not to think about her, but some days were harder than others. Sasha always knew what to say.

Jon smiled up at Martin, reaching out to pull him down into a kiss as the light flickered and twisted smooth shadows over their bodies. Martin slid his hand down from Jon’s shoulder blade down his side, hot under his palm all the way down to where their bodies were still entwined, resting it momentarily over his sharp pelvic bone before eventually, reluctantly, freeing himself and heading to the bathroom.

In the stark and honest light his reflection looked a lot more exhausted than he felt. A habit he’d enlisted in his ongoing combat with the Lonely was to look in the mirror often and see his permanence, his being; where he stopped and the world began. It was actually Jon who had suggested _grounding activities_ , and he didn’t in so many words say sex was one of them but it was certainly an effective Lonely deterrent. Though Martin didn’t like the formulaic implications of claiming that that’s all it was – like it was just something they did to tick a box off a daily checklist like one reminds themselves to take medication.

Still, it wasn’t like they had much else to pass the time with.

Keeping their minds in this world was the hardest thing, harder than he ever thought it would be and harder when you were having to do it for another person. Over the days they’d spent milling about the big empty house, big enough for them to avoid each other if they wanted to but they never wanted to, Jon had seemed to developed a habit of stopping in certain places and staring, as though in a trance, with a thoughtful and troubled expression on his face: halfway down the staircase, washing the dishes with his hands still soaking in the warm water, sat on the floor in front of the settee with his eyes unblinking and fixed on the empty fireplace. Martin didn’t know if it was just something Jon did, or if it was something else – he certainly never did it at work. Every time all he wanted to do was take Jon’s head in his hands, blinker him from whatever horrors were bleeding into the corners of his eyes, and wait for however long it was for him to return. A couple of times he acted on that want, and it had worked; but some ugly thought in the back of his mind reminded him that one day he simply wouldn’t be enough.

Today wasn’t that day. They’d returned to bed and wrapped themselves the numerous duvets and blankets that was beginning to reinstate its effect on their naked bodies. Close, together, holding each other. Of course he thought about the fact that Jon could know his mind, but with all the thoughts he was creating himself there probably wasn’t enough room to ruminate over Martin’s for too long. In the immediate, where they were right now with each breath and heartbeat kept between their bodies, it wasn’t because he knew, but because he understood.

They talked about things now that they’d never talk about beyond the bed’s barricade. About home, who they were this time last year, but most of all what they were most afraid of.

“I realised it, I think, I was just sitting in my room one day and-“ Martin paused, thinking of the right words because it felt important, “I think it was the realisation that I had no one I could go to, you know? No one that could just take it all away from me, that I could just cry to and they would understand…no one I felt safe with.” He wasn’t prepared for the devastation on Jon’s face at that, and would have stopped there if it weren’t for the gentle squeezing of his hand that reassured him. “At some point I just accepted it, that that was the way my life was and I’d just have to put up with it, and it’s so easy to think like that here- I mean- not here here- like, England. Britain. Stiff upper lip and all that, you’re rewarded for carrying on like nothing’s happening. Like you don’t feel anything.” Thinking again. He sighed. “I wouldn’t even call it repression, cause that implies you’re longing for something. I suppose I did, I longed to be loved, but it’s not something I ever really entertained, like as something to strive for, it was just…there. In the back of my mind. Comforting in a weird sort of way because it was so constant, like a background noise you just tune out of. I was scared of it making me vulnerable though, to the first person that showed me the slightest bit of affection, so I’d distance myself. Ended up just…watching, from afar.” Realising what he had just said, Martin grimaced in embarrassment. “That sounds so creepy.”

Jon’s voice was soft. “It doesn’t.”

Something about the way he said it made Martin’s chest ache. It pushed into his throat and threatened to break tears; but he managed to hold them back, reaching with one hand to brush long strands of prematurely greying hair from Jon’s face. “I watched you.” His knuckles rested on Jon’s cheekbone, beside his eye. “For so long, I watched and I- I loved you so much it hurt. All that love I’d longed for all my life I was pouring onto you and it felt right because it was mine, and I was petrified that you’d find out because it wouldn’t be mine anymore. It would be out in the open to be ridiculed and…seen.” He huffed a laugh, trying to distract from the tears that were now falling freely onto the pillow under his head. “It never even occurred to me that you’d love me back.”

For a moment there was only silence between them. Jon seemed taken aback by this revelation, searching Martin's complexion with something Martin couldn’t decide was pity or guilt, or something else. In a strange way, it was a relieving response – if Jon had been reading his mind this whole time, he would have known all that months ago.

Instead he moved forwards so that their foreheads were touching, Martin closing his eyes so that he could only listen. The rain had started up again, a gust of wind fanning it over the windowpanes in a sudden crescendo. Above it, Jon's voice was barely above a whisper, low and humming through Martin's body.

“You were the only constant I had,” he said, fingers gently pressed against the back of Martin's head to keep him there. “The only thing I could close my eyes and know that when I opened them would still be there, the same. But you’ve had enough of that, Martin. I can’t ask you to do that for me and I’ll never ask you to do it again. You’ve always concerned yourself so much with being strong for other people, being the diffuser, but that’s not how this works. I love you, and I want that to be freedom, not a burden.”

Martin wasn’t sure if he could cry any more, and he wished it were as simple as saying it was all just relief. He curled his head into Jon’s chest, letting himself be pulled tight into the cocoon embrace, managing to choke out a small “I know.”

They lay like that for a long time, the rain now incessant against the glass and Jon’s fingertips making light strokes up and down his spine. Eventually, when it felt like the weight had lifted, Martin spoke again. “You still want me to cut your hair tomorrow?”

Jon laughed, then after a moment pressed a kiss on the top of Martin’s head. “Yeah, if that’s okay.”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

Martin raised his head deftly, just enough to look at Jon. “Can I give you a skin fade?”

Jon’s smile only widened as he shook his head, but in his eyes Martin saw everything that he had been looking for. “Fuck off.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thought I was a balanced person until I used the strong nuclear force as a metaphor for making out lmfao🥴 physics degree brainrot


End file.
